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Last up is Team Korea. Carl gives the judges a cuttlefish and shrimp salad with avocado, which has nice texture according to Gail, though Sang Yoon wishes that he’d done something to the cuttlefish. Jason has noodles with iced broth, cucumber, Asian pear, and egg. Gail enjoys the texture of his noodles and the sweetness added by the Asian pear. Karen serves up grilled kalbi with nectarine kimchi, which according to Gail, has the most flavor of any of the team’s dishes. Finally, crisis-ridden Giselle has her Korean wings with cucumber salad. To the extreme relief of her teammates, Tom likes the dish, even though “it’s not authentic.”

With the eating portion over, the judges and cheftestants head back to the stew room and Judges Table, respectively. To me, it seems pretty clear that Team Persia had the strongest day, while Team Vegan was limper than three-day old celery in the fridge (aren’t you proud of me for avoiding the obvious sexual euphemism there?). As for the win, that seems equally easy to predict: Marjorie with her dessert.

Padma summarizes the challenge faced by the cheftestants of opening four pop-up restaurants in a single day. Tom pointedly notes that each team was given a cultural ambassador, which some teams chose to utilize, while others (*cough* Mexico *cough*) did not.

Padma proves me right - Team Persia comes out on top. Tom notes that the cheftestants appeared to enjoy working together and it showed. He also applauded their willingness to listen to their ambassador. Amar’s carrots gets props for their flavor, Angelina’s chicken was nicely cooked (though lacking salt), and Ludo loved Isaac’s meatballs. Tom notes that cheftestants often get “beat up for making desserts,” but assures that Marjorie won’t suffer the same fate so long as she keeps making desserts on par with what she served today, which was a “lovely, lovely dessert,” in Tom’s words.

And yes, she ends up taking home the day’s top prize. Ludo calls it well-balanced with amazing flavor, and gives her the biggest compliment: the owner of Taste of Tehran wants to add the dessert to the restaurant’s menu. Awesome.

I’m right again regarding the worst team, though it was not nearly as clear-cut as I’d assumed. Though Team Vegan lands on the bottom, Padma notes that if it weren’t for Kwame’s dish on Team Mexico, “things might have been different.” “He really saved you,” Gail chimes in.

As for Team Vegan, Gail notes that the question for those four chefs is, “what is exciting vegan food?” In response, Grayson cannot help but make a “how the f* would I know?” expression. Picking up on that, Gail notes, “you had an ambassador there; he could have helped you.” Ludo agrees and says that he expected more creativity from the bunch.

Frances defends her dish by noting that she has a background cooking Indian food. Since she had to go vegan, she decided to incorporate chickpeas. This explanation doesn’t sit well with Tom. “You’re in Southern California with amazing produce and you use canned beans? I just don’t understand it.”

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